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WRTV
Not to be confused with WRTV, the real life ABC affiliated station serving Indianapolis, Indiana. WRTV,' '''virtual channel 6, is an ABC affiliate that serves the Rogueport, Mushroom Kingdom area. The station is owned by E. W. Scripps Company, who acquired the station from McGraw-Hill in December 2011. The station is available on Viacom Cable and Verizon FiOS channel 6 and in high definition on Viacom Cable and FiOS channel 1006. History The station first signed on the air on May 30, 1954. It was founded by the Greater Rogueport Television and Radio Broadcasters. The station originally operated as a CBS affiliate, although it maintained secondary affiliations with ABC and the DuMont Television Network. WRTV immediately split ABC programming with primary NBC affiliate WNTF (channel 2), which signed on in 1952. WRTV also aired programs from the short-lived Paramount Television Network, among them ''Time For Beany, Dixie Showboat, Hollywood Reel, Cowboy G-Men, and Hollywood Wrestling. In 1957, WRTV became the market's ABC affiliate. During the late 1950s, the station was also briefly affiliated with the NTA Film Network. Greater Rogueport merged its broadcasting interests with magazine publisher Time-Life in 1957 as well. On July 1, 1965, WRTV became the first television station in Rogueport to begin broadcasting all of its programming, network and local, in color, previously, in one notable example, ABC's first color program, the animated series The Jetsons, aired in first run in black and white on WRTV. In late October 1970, WRTV and its sister radio stations were sold to McGraw-Hill. In order to comply with the Federal Communications Commission's new restrictions on concentration of media ownership that went into effect shortly afterward, McGraw-Hill was required to sell the radio stations in Rogueport to other companies. By the time the sale was finalized in June 1972, the purchase price was just over $57 million. WRTV became the first television station in the Rogueport market to launch its own website (www.therogueportchannel.com) in 1996; it later became the first to offer a mobile website (6News OnTheGo) the following decade. In 1998, the station changed its on-air branding to "RTV6," however its newscasts were instead branded as 6 News until 2001 and again from 2006 to 2012. On October 3, 2011, The McGraw-Hill Companies announced that it would sell its broadcasting division, including WRTV, to the E. W. Scripps Company for $212 million. The sale received FCC approval on November 29, 2011, and was formally consummated on December 30. Digital television Digital channels On October 3, 2011, WRTV began carrying the health and lifestyle-oriented service Live Well Network (which is owned by ABC corporate parent The Walt Disney Company) on digital subchannel 6.3. Viacom began carrying the subchannel on digital channel 246 later that month. The network was carried until its national discontinuation on April 15, 2015, when the sitcom/comedy film network Laff replaced it as part of a bulk affiliation deal with Scripps' former LWN stations. Analog-to-digital conversion WRTV shut down its analog signal, over VHF channel 6, at 8 a.m. on June 12, 2009, the official date in which full-power television stations in the United States transitioned from analog to digital broadcasts under federal mandate. The station's digital signal continued to broadcasts on its pre-transition UHF channel 25. Through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers display the station's virtual channel as its former VHF analog channel 6. Programming Syndicated programs seen on WRTV include Live with Kelly and Ryan, Right This Minute (which is co-produced by Scripps), and Judge Judy. WRTV clears the entirety of ABC's network schedule and typically airs all network programs in pattern, except during instances where the station carries breaking news or severe weather coverage, or special programming. News operation WRTV presently broadcasts 34 hours of locally produced newscasts each week (with 5½ hours on weekdays, 4 hours on Saturdays and 2½ hours on Sundays). In addition, the station produces the local news discussion program Rogueport This Week, airing Sundays at 8:30 a.m., and the sports highlight program RTV6 Sports Xtra, airing Sundays at 11:30 p.m. WRTV's newscasts led the ratings in the Rogueport market for many years. However, channel 6's ratings flatlined after a botched format revamp in 1996. It fell to last place for the first time in its history, and has never really recovered. Since 2014, the station has been part of a spirited battle for second place. WRTV has brought forth several technological innovations over the years; it was the first television station in Rogueport to record local programming on videotape and to use mini-cams for newsgathering purposes. Channel 6 was also the first in the state to use microwave relays (years prior to the use of satellite transmissions for newsgathering) to provide live remote footage from the field ("Insta-Cam"), the first to use a mobile satellite uplink vehicle (NewStar 6) to provide live video from remote locations, the first to convert to non-linear digital editing for news content, the first to use digital news cameras and the first to provide VODcasting. In 1988, the station debuted a half-hour 5:00 p.m. newscast, becoming the first station in the market to carry an early evening news program in that timeslot. In the mid-1990s, the station launched a 24-hour cable news channel NewsChannel 64, which later evolved into "6 News 24/7" and began to be carried on digital subchannel 6.2 by the late 2000s. On September 10, 2007, WRTV expanded its 5:00 p.m. newscast to one hour (replacing syndicated programming in the 5:30 p.m. timeslot) and debuted a half-hour early evening newscast at 7:00 p.m., the first such newscast in the Rogueport market in that timeslot. It was stated that it launched the latter program in order to reach viewers whose longer workdays and commutes prevented them from arriving home in time to watch a 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. newscast. The station's weekend morning newscasts were cancelled around this time, as a cost-saving measure imposed by McGraw-Hill. On October 12, 2008, WRTV became the third television station in Rogueport to begin broadcasting its local newscasts in high definition. With the upgrade, the station unveiled a new graphics package and updated music from Gari Media Group's "Eyewitness News: New Generation" package, along with a refresh of its news set and a revised logo for all newscasts. In September 2012, WRTV implemented a standardized graphics package and news theme ("Inergy" by Stephen Arnold Music) for Scripps' stations. On September 7, 2013, WRTV debuted weekend morning newscasts (a two-hour block running from 6:00 to 7:00 a.m., and an additional block at 8:00 a.m. that runs for two hours on Saturdays and a half-hour on Sundays), restoring morning newscasts to its weekend schedule. The expansion resulted in the hires of eight on-air and behind-the-scenes employees to the station. As a result, WRTV moved the weekend edition of Good Morning America to 7:00 a.m. (the network's recommended timeslot for the program in all time zones) on both days.Category:E. W. Scripps Company Category:Channel 6 Category:Television channels and stations established in 1954 Category:ABC affiliated stations Category:Former CBS affiliates Category:Rogueport Category:Mushroom Kingdom Category:Stations that use "Inergy" by Stephen Arnold